Читать книгу The Reign of Mary Tudor - James Anthony Froude - Страница 6

At a night session of the council, a letter was written to Northumberland, which Cranmer, Suffolk, and Sir John Cheke consented to sign, ordering him in the name of Queen Mary to lay down his arms. If he complied, the lords undertook to intercede for his pardon. If he refused, they said that they would hold him as a traitor, and spend their lives in the field against him.[51]

While a pursuivant bore the commands of the council to the duke, Arundel and Paget undertook to carry to Mary at Framlingham their petition for forgiveness, in which they declared that they had been innocent at heart of any share in the conspiracy,[52] and had only delayed coming forward in her favour from a desire to prevent bloodshed.

The two lords immediately mounted and galloped off into the darkness, followed by thirty horse, leaving the lights of illuminated London gleaming behind them.

The duke's position was already desperate: on the 18th, before the proclamation in London, Mary had felt herself strong enough to send orders to the Mayor of Cambridge for his arrest;[53] and, although he had as yet been personally unmolested, he was powerless in the midst of an army which was virtually in Mary's service. The news of the revolution in London first reached him by a private hand. He at once sent for Sandys, and, going with him to the market cross, he declared, after one violent clutch at his beard, that he had acted under orders from the council; the council, he understood, had changed their minds, and he would change his mind also; therefore he cried, "God save Queen Mary," and with a strained effort at a show of satisfaction, he, too, like Pembroke, threw up his cap. The queen, he said to Sandys, was a merciful woman, and there would be a general pardon. "Though the queen grant you a pardon," Sandys answered, "the lords never will; you can hope nothing from those who now rule."[54]

It was true that he could hope nothing—the hatred of the whole nation, which before his late treasons he had brought upon himself, would clamour to the very heavens for judgment against him. An hour after the proclamation of Mary (July 20), Rouge-cross herald arrived with the lords' letter from London. An order at the same time was read to the troops informing them that they were no longer under the duke's command, and an alderman of the town then ventured to execute the queen's warrant for his arrest. Northumberland was given in charge to a guard of his own soldiers; he protested, however, that the council had sent no instructions for his detention; and in some uncertainty, or perhaps in compassion for his fate, the soldiers obeyed him once more, and let him go. It was then night. He intended to fly; but he put it off till the morning, and in the morning his chance was gone. Before he could leave his room he found himself face to face with Arundel, who, after delivering the council's letter to the queen, had hastened to Cambridge to secure him.

Northumberland, who, while innocent of crime, had faced death on land and sea like a soldier and a gentleman, flung himself at the earl's feet. "Be good to me, for the love of God," he cried; "consider I have done nothing but by the consent of you and the council." He knew what kind of consent he had extorted from the council. "My lord," said Arundel, "I am sent thither by the Queen's Majesty; and in her name I do arrest you."—"I obey, my lord," the duke replied; "yet show me mercy, knowing the case as it is."—"My lord," was the cold answer, "you should have sought for mercy sooner; I must do according to my commandment."[55]

At the same moment Sandys was paying the penalty for his sermon. The university, in haste to purge itself of its heretical elements, met soon after sunrise to depose their vice-chancellor. Dr. Sandys, who had gone for an early stroll among the meadows to meditate on his position, hearing the congregation-bell ringing, resolved, like a brave man, to front his fortune; he walked to the senate-house, entered, and took his seat. "A rabble of Papists" instantly surrounded him. He tried to speak, but the masters of arts shouted "Traitor;" rough hands shook or dragged him from his chair: and the impatient theologian, in sudden heat, drew his dagger, and "would have done a mischief with it," had not some of his friends disarmed him.[56] He, too, was handed over to a guard, lashed to the back of a lame horse, and carried to London.

Mary, meanwhile, notwithstanding the revolution in her favour, remained a few more days at Framlingham, either suspicious of treachery or uncertain whether there might not be another change. But she was assured rapidly that the danger was at an end by the haste with which the lords and gentlemen who were compromised sought their pardon at her feet. On the 21st and 22nd Clinton, Grey, Fitzgerald, Ormond, Fitzwarren, Sir Henry Sidney, and Sir James Crofts presented themselves and received forgiveness. Cecil wrote, explaining his secret services, and was taken into favour. Lord Robert and Lord Ambrose Dudley, Northampton and a hundred other gentlemen—Sir Thomas Wyatt among them—who had accompanied the duke to Bury, were not so fortunate. The queen would not see them, and they were left under arrest. Ridley set out for Norfolk, also, to confess his offences; but, before he arrived at the court, he was met by a warrant for his capture, and carried back a prisoner to the Tower.

The conspiracy was crushed, and crushed, happily, without bloodshed. The inquiry into its origin, and the punishment of the guilty, could be carried out at leisure. There was one matter, however, which admitted of no delay. Mary's first anxiety, on feeling her crown secure, was the burial of her dead brother, who, through all these scenes, was still lying in his bed in his room at Greenwich. In her first letter to the Imperial ambassadors, the day after the arrival of Arundel and Paget at the court, she spoke of this as her greatest care; to their infinite alarm, she announced her intention of inaugurating her reign with Requiem and Dirige, and a mass for the repose of his soul.

Their uneasiness requires explanation.

While on matters of religion there was in England almost every variety of opinion, there was a very general consent that the queen should not marry a foreigner. The dread that Mary might form a connection with some continental prince, had formed the strongest element in Northumberland's cause; all the Catholics, except the insignificant faction who desired the restoration of the Papal authority,[57] all the moderate Protestants, wished well to her, but wished to see her married to some English nobleman; and, while her accession was still uncertain, the general opinion had already fixed upon a husband for her in the person of her cousin Edward Courtenay, the imprisoned son of the Marquis of Exeter. The interest of the public in the long confinement of this young nobleman had invested him with all imaginary graces of mind and body. He was the grandchild of a Plantagenet, and a representative of the White Rose. He had suffered from the tyranny, and was supposed to have narrowly escaped murder at the hands of the man whom all England most hated. Nature, birth, circumstances, all seemed to point to him as the king-consort of the realm.[58] The emperor had thought of Mary for his son; and it has been seen that the fear of such an alliance induced the French to support Northumberland. To prevent the injury which the report, if credited in England, would have done to her cause, Mary, on her first flight to Keninghal, empowered Renard to assure the council that she had no thought at all of marrying a stranger. The emperor and the bishop of Arras, in assuring Sir Philip Hoby that the French intended to strike for the Queen of Scots, declared that, for themselves they wished only to see the queen settled in her own realm, as her subjects desired; and especially they would prevent her either from attempting innovations in religion without their consent, or from marrying against their approbation.[59]

But the emperor's disinterestedness was only the result of his despondency. While the crisis lasted, neither Charles nor Henry of France saw their way to a distinct course of action. Charles, on the 20th of July, ignorant of the events in London, had written to Renard, despairing of Mary's success. Jane Grey he would not recognise; the Queen of Scots, he thought, would shortly be on the English throne. Henry, considering, at any rate, that he might catch something in troubled waters, volunteered to Lord William Howard,[60] in professed compliance with the demands of Northumberland, to garrison Guisnes and Calais for him. Howard replied that the French might come to Calais if they desired, but their reception might not be to their taste.[61] The revolution of the 19th altered the aspect of the situation both at the courts of Paris and of Brussels. The accession of Mary would be no injury to France, provided she could be married in England; and Henry at once instructed Noailles to congratulate the council on her accession. Noailles himself indeed considered, that, should she take Courtenay for a husband, the change might, after all, be to their advantage. The emperor, on the other hand, began to think again of his original scheme. Knowing that the English were sincere in their detestation of the Papacy, and imperfectly comprehending the insular distinction between general attachment to Catholic tradition and indifference to Catholic unity, he supposed that the country really was, on the whole, determined in its adherence to the reformed opinions. But the political alliance was still of infinite importance to him; and therefore he was anxious beyond everything that the princess whom he intended to persuade to break her word about her marriage should be discreet and conciliatory about religion. He lost not a moment, after hearing that she was proclaimed queen, in sending her his congratulations; but he sent with them an earnest admonition to be cautious; to be content with the free exercise for herself of her own creed, to take no step whatever without the sanction of parliament, and to listen to no one who would advise her, of her own authority, to set aside the Act of Uniformity. Her first duty was to provide for the quiet of the realm; and she must endeavour, by prudence and moderation, to give reasonable satisfaction to her subjects of all opinions. Above all things, let her remember to be a good Englishwoman (bonne Anglaise).[62]

It was, in consequence, with no light anxiety that Renard learnt from Mary her intention of commencing her reign with an act which was so far at variance with the emperor's advice, and which would at once display the colours of a party. To give the late king a public funeral with a ceremonial forbidden by the law, would be a strain of the prerogative which could not fail to create jealousy even among those to whom the difference between a Latin mass and an English service was not absolutely vital; and the judicious latitudinarianism to which the lay statesmen of the better sort were inclining, would make them dread the appearance of a disposition that would encourage the revolutionists. She owed her crown to the Protestants as well as to the Catholics. If she broke the law to please the prejudices of the latter, Renard was warned that her present popularity would not be of long continuance.[63]

Yet, as the ambassador trembled to know, a carelessness of consequences and an obstinate perseverance in a course which she believed to be right were the principal features in Mary's character. He wrote to her while she was still at Framlingham, using every argument which ought, as he considered, to prevail. He reminded her of the long and unavailing struggle of the emperor to bring back Germany out of heresy, where the obstinacy of the Romanists had been as mischievous to him as the fanaticism of the Lutherans. "Her duty to God was of course the first thing to be considered; but at such a time prudence was a part of that duty. The Protestant heresies had taken a hold deep and powerful upon her subjects. In London alone there were fifteen thousand French, Flemish, and German refugees, most of them headstrong and ungovernable enthusiasts. The country dreaded any fresh convulsions, and her majesty should remember that she had instructed him to tell the council that she was suspected unjustly, and had no thought of interfering with the existing settlement of the realm."[64]

With all his efforts, however, Renard could but bring the queen to consent to a few days' delay; and fearing that she would return to her purpose, he sent to the emperor a copy of his letter, which he urged him to follow up. Charles on the 29th replied again, lauding the ambassador's caution, and suggesting an argument more likely to weigh with his cousin than the soundest considerations of public policy. Edward had lived and died in heresy, and the Catholic services were intended only for the faithful sons of the Church.[65] He desired Renard to remind her that those who had been her most valuable friends were known to hold opinions far from orthodox; and he once more implored her to be guided by parliament, and to take care that the parliament was free. She had asked whether she should imitate Northumberland and nominate the members of the House of Commons. He cautioned her against so dangerous an example; he advised her to let the counties and towns send deputies of their own choice; and if the writs were sent into Cornwall and the northern counties, which had remained most constant to the Catholic religion, these places might be expected to return persons who would support her own sentiments.[66]

If the emperor had been equally earnest in urging Mary to consult the wishes of her subjects on her marriage, he would have been a truer friend to her than he proved to be. But prudential arguments produced no effect on the eager queen; Renard had warned her not to resist Northumberland; she had acted on her own judgment, and Northumberland was a prisoner, and she was on the throne. By her own will she was confident that she could equally well restore the mass, and in good time the pope's authority. The religious objection to the funeral was more telling, and on this point she hesitated. Meantime she began to move slowly towards London, and at the end of the month the reached her old house of Newhall in Essex, where she rested till the preparations were complete for her entry into the city.

The first point on which she had now to make up her mind concerned the persons with whom she was to carry on the government. The emperor was again clear in his advice, which here she found herself obliged to follow. She was forced to leave undisturbed in their authorities such of her brother's late ministers as had contributed to the revolution in her favour. Derby, Sussex, Bath, Oxford, who had hurried to her support at Framlingham, were her loyal subjects, whom she could afford to neglect, because she could depend upon their fidelity. Pembroke and Winchester, Arundel and Shrewsbury, Bedford, Cobham, Cheyne, Petre, too powerful to affront, too uncertain to be trusted as subjects, she could only attach to herself by maintaining in their offices and emoluments. She would restore the Duke of Norfolk to the council; Gardiner should hold office again; and she could rely on the good faith of Paget, the ablest, as well as the most honest, of all the professional statesmen. But Norfolk was old, and the latitudinarian Paget and the bigoted Gardiner bore each other no good will; so that, when the queen had leisure to contemplate her position, it did not promise to be an easy one. She would have to govern with the assistance of men who were gorged with the spoils of the church, suspected of heresy, and at best indifferent to religion.

In Mary's absence, the lords in London carried on the government as they could on their own responsibility. On the 21st Courtenay was released from the Tower. Gardiner was offered liberty, but he waited to accept it from the queen's own hand. He rejoined the council, however, and on the first or second day of his return to the board, he agitated their deliberations by requiring the restoration of his house in Southwark, which had been appropriated to the Marquis of Northampton, and by reminding Pembroke that he was in possession of estates which had been stolen from the See of Winchester.

On the 25th Northumberland and Lord Ambrose Dudley were brought in from Cambridge, escorted by Grey and Arundel, with four hundred of the guard. Detachments of troops were posted all along the streets from Bishopsgate, where the duke would enter, to the Tower, to prevent the mob from tearing him in pieces. It was but twelve days since he had ridden out from that gate in the splendour of his power; he was now assailed from all sides with yells and execrations; bareheaded, with cap in hand, he bowed to the crowd as he rode on, as if to win some compassion from them; but so recent a humility could find no favour. His scarlet cloak was plucked from his back; the only sounds which greeted his ears were, "Traitor, traitor, death to the traitor!" He hid his face, sick at heart with shame, and Lord Ambrose, at the gate of the Tower, was seen to burst into tears.[67] Edwin Sandys, Northampton, Ridley, Lord Robert Dudley, the offending judges Cholmley and Montague, with many others, followed in the few next days. Montague had protested to the queen that he had acted only under compulsion, but his excuses were not fully received. Lady Northumberland went to Newhall to beg for mercy for her sons, but Mary refused to admit her.[68]

In general, however, there was no desire to press hard upon the prisoners. Few had been guilty in the first degree; in the second degree so many were guilty, that all could not be punished, and to make exceptions would be unjust and invidious. The emperor recommended a general pardon, from which the principal offenders only should be excluded, and Mary herself was as little inclined to harshness. Her present desire was to forget all that had passed, and take possession of her power for the objects nearest to her heart. Her chief embarrassment for the moment was from the overloyalty of her subjects. The old-fashioned lords and country gentlemen who had attended her with their retainers from Norfolk, remained encamped round Newhall, unable to persuade themselves that they could leave her with safety in the midst of the men who had been the ministers of the usurpation.[69]

Her closest confidence the queen reserved for Renard. On the 28th of July she sent for him at midnight. On the 2nd of August he was again with her, and the chief subject of her thoughts was still the funeral. "She could not have her brother committed to the ground like a dog," she said. While her fortunes were uncertain, she allowed Renard to promise for her that she would make no changes in religion, but "she had now told the lords distinctly that she would not recognise any of the laws which had been passed in the minority,[70] and she intended to act boldly; timidity would only encourage the people to be insolent;" "the lords were all quarrelling among themselves, and accusing one another; she could not learn the truth on any point of the late conspiracy; she did not know who were guilty or who were innocent; and, amidst the distracted advices which were urged upon her, she could not tell whether she could safely venture to London or not; but outward acquiescence in the course which she chose to follow she believed that she could compel, and she would govern as God should direct her. The emperor, she added, had written to her about her marriage, not specifying any particular person, but desiring her to think upon the subject. She had never desired to marry while princess, nor did she desire it now; but if it were for the interests of the church, she would do whatever he might advise."

On this last point Renard knew more of the emperor's intentions than Mary, and was discreetly silent; on other point he used his influence wisely. He constrained her, with Charles's arguments, to relinquish her burial scheme. "Edward, as a heretic, should have a heretic funeral at Westminster Abbey; she need not be present, and might herself have a mass said for him in the Tower. As to removing to London, in his opinion she had better go thither at once, take possession of her throne, and send Northumberland to trial. Her brother's body ought to be examined also, that it might be ascertained whether he had been poisoned; and if poisoned, by whom and for what purpose."[71]

Mary rarely paused upon a resolution. Making up her mind that, as Renard said, it would be better for her to go to London, she set out thither the following day, Thursday, the 3rd of August. Excitement lent to her hard features an expression almost of beauty,[72] as she rode in the midst of a splendid cavalcade of knights and nobles. Elizabeth, escorted by two thousand horse and a retinue of ladies, was waiting to receive her outside the gates. The first in her congratulations, after the proclamation, yet fearful of giving offence, Elizabeth had written to ask if it was the queen's pleasure that she should appear in mourning; but the queen would have no mourning, nor would have others wear it in her presence. The sombre colours which of late years had clouded the court were to be banished at once and for ever; and with the dark colours, it seemed for a time as if old dislikes and suspicions were at the same time to pass away. The sisters embraced; the queen was warm and affectionate, kissing all the ladies in Elizabeth's train; and side by side the daughters of Henry VIII. rode through Aldgate at seven in the evening, amidst the shouts of the people, the thunder of cannon, and pealing of church bells.[73] At the Tower gates the old Duke of Norfolk, Gardiner, Courtenay, and the Duchess of Somerset were seen kneeling as Mary approached. "These are my prisoners," she said as she alighted from her horse, and stooped and kissed them. Charmed by the enthusiastic reception and by the pleasant disappointment of her anxieties, she could find no room for hard thoughts of any one; so far was she softened, Renard wrote, that she could hardly be brought to consent to the necessary execution of justice. Against Northumberland himself she had no feeling of vindictiveness, and was chiefly anxious that he should be attended by a confessor; Northampton was certainly to be pardoned; Suffolk was already free; Northumberland should be spared, if possible; and, as to Lady Jane, justice forbade, she said, that an innocent girl should suffer for the crimes of others.[74]

The emperor had recommended mercy; but he had not advised a general indemnity, as Renard made haste to urge. The imperialist conception of clemency differed from the queen's; and the same timidity which had first made the ambassadors too prudent, now took the form of measured cruelty. Renard entreated that Lady Jane should not be spared; "conspirators required to be taught that for the principals in treason there was but one punishment; the duke must die, and the rival queen and her husband must die with him." "We set before her"—Renard's own hand is the witness against him—"the examples of Maximus and his son Victor, both executed by the Emperor Theodosius; Maximus, because he had usurped the purple; Victor, because, as the intended heir of his father, he might have been an occasion of danger had he lived."[75]

Looking also, as Renard was already doing, on the scenes which were around him, chiefly or solely as they might affect the interests of his master's son, he had been nervously struck by the entourage which surrounded Elizabeth and the popularity which she, as well as the queen, was evidently enjoying.

Elizabeth, now passing into womanhood, was the person to whom the affections of the liberal party in England most definitely tended. She was the heir-presumptive to the crown; in matters of religion she was opposed to the mass, and opposed as decidedly to factious and dogmatic Protestantism; while from the caution with which she had kept aloof from political entanglements, it was clear that her brilliant intellectual abilities were not her only or her most formidable gifts. Already she shared the favour of the people with the queen. Let Mary offend them (and in the intended marriage offence would unquestionably have to be given), their entire hearts might be transferred to her. The public finger had pointed to Courtenay as the husband which England desired for the queen. When Courtenay should be set aside by Mary, he might be accepted by Elizabeth; and Elizabeth, it was rumoured, looked upon him with an eye of favour.[76] On all accounts, therefore, Elizabeth was dangerous. She was a figure on the stage whom Renard would gladly see removed; and a week or two later he bid Mary look to her, watch her, and catch her tripping if good fortune would so permit: "it was better to prevent than to be prevented."[77]

The queen did not close her ears to these evil whispers; but for the first few days after she came to the Tower her thoughts were chiefly occupied with religion, and her first active step was to release and to restore to their sees the deprived and imprisoned bishops. The first week in August, Ponet, by royal order, was ejected from Winchester, Ridley from London, and Scory from Chichester. The See of Durham was reconstituted. Tunstal, Day, and Heath were set at liberty, and returned to their dioceses. The Bishop of Ely was deposed from the chancellorship, and the seals were given to Gardiner. "On the 5th of August," says the Grey Friars' Chronicle, "at seven o'clock at night, Edmond Bonner came home from the Marshalsea like a bishop, and all the people by the wayside bade him welcome home, both man and woman, and as many of the women as might kissed him; and so he came to Paul's, and knelt on the steps, and said his prayers, and the people rang the bells for joy."[78]

While Mary was repairing acts of injustice, Gardiner, with Sir William Petre, was looking into the public accounts. The debts of the late government had been reduced, the currency unconsidered, to £190,000.[79] A doubt had been raised whether, after the attempt to set aside the succession, the queen was bound to take the responsibility of these obligations, but Mary preferred honour to convenience; she promised to pay everything as soon as possible. Further, there remain, partly in Gardiner's hand, a number of hasty notes, written evidently in these same first weeks of Mary's reign, which speak nobly for the intentions with which both Mary and himself were setting generally to work. The expenses of the household were to be reduced to the scale of Henry VII., or the early years of Henry VIII.; the garrisons at Berwick and Calais were to be placed on a more economical footing, the navy reduced, the irregular guard dismissed or diminished. Bribery was to be put an end to in the courts of Westminster, at quarter sessions, and among justices of the peace; "the laws were to be restored to their authority without suffering any matters to be ordered otherwise than as the laws should appoint."[80] These first essentials having been attended to, the famous or infamous book of sales, grants, and exchanges of the crown lands was to be looked into; the impropriation of benefices was to cease, and decency to be restored to the parish churches, where the grooms and gamekeepers should give way to competent ministers; economy, order, justice, and reverence were to heal the canker of profligate profanity which had eaten too long into the moral life of England.

In happier times Mary might have been a worthy queen, and Gardiner an illustrious minister;[81] but the fatal superstition which confounded religion with orthodox opinion was too strong for both of them.

Edward's body was meanwhile examined. The physicians reported that without doubt he had died of poison, and there was a thought of indicting the Duke of Northumberland for his murder: but it was relinquished on further inquiry; the poison, if the physicians were right, must have been administered by negligence or accident. The corpse was then buried (August 6) with the forms of the Church of England at Westminster Abbey; the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had so far been left at liberty, read the service; it was the last and saddest function of his public ministry which he was destined to perform. Simultaneously, as Mary had determined, requiems were chanted in the Tower Chapel; and Gardiner, in the presence of the queen and four hundred persons, sung the mass for the dead with much solemnity. The ceremony was, however, injured by a misfortune; after the gospel the incense was carried round, and the chaplain who bore it was married; Doctor Weston, who was afterwards deprived of the deanery of Windsor for adultery, darted forward and snatched the censer out of the chaplain's hand. "Shamest thou not to do thine office," he said, "having a wife, as thou hast? The queen will not be censed by such as thou."[82] Nor was scandal the worst part of it. Elizabeth had been requested to attend, and had refused; angry murmurs and curses against the Bishop of Winchester were heard among the yeomen of the guard; while the queen made no secret of her desire that the example which she had set should be imitated. Renard trembled for the consequences; Noailles anticipated a civil war; twenty thousand men, the latter said, would lose their lives before England would be cured of heresy;[83] yet Mary had made a beginning, and as she had begun she was resolved that others should continue.

In the Tower she felt her actions under restraint. She was still surrounded by thousands of armed men, the levies of Derby and Hastings, the retainers of Pembroke and Arundel and Bedford; the council were spies upon her actions; the sentinels at the gates were a check upon her visitors. She could receive no one whose business with her was not made public to the lords, and whose reception they were not pleased to sanction; even Renard was for a time excluded from her, and in her anxiety to see him she suggested that he might come to her in disguise.[84] Such a thraldom was irksome and inconvenient. She had broken the promise which Renard had been allowed to make for her about religion; she had been troubled, it is easy to believe, with remonstrances, to which she was not likely to have answered with temper; Pembroke absented himself from the presence; he was required to retire and to reduce the number of his followers; the quarrels which began while the queen was at Newhall broke out with worse violence than ever; Lord Derby complained to Renard that those who had saved her crown were treated with neglect, while men like Arundel, Bedford, and Pembroke, who had been parties to the treasons against her, remained in power; Lord Russell was soon after placed under arrest; Pembroke and Winchester were ordered to keep their houses, and the court was distracted with suspicion, discord, and uncertainty.[85]

From such a scene Mary desired to escape to some place where she could be at least mistress of her own movements; her impatience was quickened by a riot at St. Bartholomew's, where a priest attempted to say mass; and on Saturday, the 12th of August, she removed to Richmond. Her absence encouraged the insubordination of the people. On Sunday, the 13th, another priest was attacked at the altar; the vestments were torn from his back, and the chalice snatched from his hands. Bourne, whom the queen had appointed her chaplain, preached at Paul's Cross. A crowd of refugees and English fanatics had collected round the pulpit; and when he spoke something in praise of Bonner, and said that he had been unjustly imprisoned,[86] yells rose of "Papist, Papist! Tear him down!" A dagger was hurled at the preacher, swords were drawn, the mayor attempted to interfere, but he could not make his way through the dense mass of the rioters; and Bourne would have paid for his rashness with his life had not Courtenay, who was a popular favourite, with his mother, the Marchioness of Exeter, thrown themselves on the pulpit steps, while Bradford sprung to his side, and kept the people back till he could be carried off.

But the danger did not end there. The Protestant orators sounded the alarm through London. Meetings were held, and inflammatory placards were scattered about the streets. If religion was to be tampered with, men were heard to say, it was better at once to fetch Northumberland from the Tower.

Uncertain on whom she could rely, Mary sent for Renard (August 16), who could only repeat his former cautions, and appeal to what had occurred in justification of them. He undertook to pacify Lord Derby; but in the necessity to which she was so soon reduced of appealing to him, a foreigner, in her emergencies, he made her feel that she could not carry things with so high a hand. She had a rival in the Queen of Scots, beyond her domestic enemies, whom her wisdom ought to fear; she would ruin herself if she flew in the face of her subjects; and he prevailed so far with her that she promised to take no further steps till the meeting of parliament. After a consultation with the mayor, she drew up a hasty proclamation, granting universal toleration till further orders, forbidding her Protestant and Catholic subjects to interrupt each other's services, and prohibiting at the same time all preaching on either side without licence from herself.

Being on the spot, the ambassador took the opportunity of again trying Mary's disposition upon the marriage question. His hopes had waned since her arrival in London; he had spoken to Paget, who agreed that an alliance with the Prince of Spain was the most splendid which the queen could hope for; but the time was inopportune, and the people were intensely hostile. The exigencies of the position, he thought, might oblige the queen to yield to wishes which she could not oppose, and accept Lord Courtenay; or possibly her own inclination might set in the same direction; or, again, she might wish to renew her early engagement with the emperor himself. The same uncertainty had been felt at Brussels; the Bishop of Arras, therefore, had charged Renard to feel his way carefully and make no blunder. If the queen inclined to the emperor, he might speak of Philip as more eligible; if she fancied Courtenay, it would be useless to interfere—she would only resent his opposition.[87] Renard obeyed his instructions, and the result was reassuring. When the ambassador mentioned the word "marriage," the queen began to smile significantly, not once, but many times; she plainly liked the topic: plainly, also, her thoughts were not turning in the direction of any English husband; she spoke of her rank, and of her unwillingness to condescend to a subject; Courtenay, the sole remaining representative of the White Rose except the Poles, was the only Englishman who could in any way be thought suitable for her; but she said that she expected the emperor to provide a consort for her, and that, being a woman, she could not make the first advances. Renard satisfied himself from her manner that, if the Prince of Spain was proposed, the offer would be most entirely welcome.[88]

The trials of the conspirators were now resolved upon. The queen was determined to spare Lady Jane Grey, in spite of all which Renard could urge; but the state of London showed that the punishment of the really guilty could no longer be safely delayed. On this point all parties in the council were agreed. On Friday, the 18th of August, therefore, a court of peers was formed in Westminster Hall, with the aged Duke of Norfolk for High Steward, to try John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Warwick, and the Marquis of Northampton for high treason. Forty-four years before, as the curious remarked, the father of Norfolk had sat on the commission which tried the father of Northumberland for the same crime.

The indictments charged the prisoners with levying war against their lawful sovereign. Northumberland, who was called first to the bar, pleaded guilty of the acts which were laid against him, but he submitted two points to the consideration of the court.

1. Whether, having taken the field with a warrant under the Great Seal, he could be lawfully accused of treason.

2. Whether those peers from whom he had received his commission, and by whose letters he had been directed in what he had done, could sit upon his trial as his judges.

The Great Seal, he was answered briefly, was the seal of a usurper, and could convey no warrant to him. If the lords were as guilty as he said, yet, "so long as no attainder was on record against them, they were persons able in law to pass upon any trial, and not to be challenged but at the prince's pleasure."[89]

The duke bowed and was silent.

Northampton and Warwick came next, and, like Northumberland, confessed to the indictment. Northampton, however, pleaded in his defence, that he had held no public office during the crisis; that he had not been present at the making of Edward's device, and had been amusing himself hunting in the country.[90] Warwick, with proud sadness, said merely, that he had followed his father, and would share his father's fortunes; if his property was confiscated, he hoped that his debts would be paid.[91]

But Northampton had indisputably been in the field with the army, and, as his judges perfectly well knew, had been, with Suffolk, the Duke's uniform supporter in his most extreme measures; the queen had resolved to pardon him; but the court could not recognise his excuse. Norfolk rose, in a few words pronounced the usual sentence, and broke his wand; the cold glimmering edge of the Tower axe was turned towards the prisoners, and the peers rose. Northumberland, before he was led away, fell upon his knees; his children were young, he said, and had acted under orders from himself; to them let the queen show mercy; for himself he had his peace to make with Heaven; he entreated for a few days of life, and the assistance of a confessor; if two of the council would come to confer with him, he had important secrets of state to communicate; and, finally, he begged that he might die by the axe like a nobleman.[92]

On the 19th, Sir John and Sir Henry Gates, Sir Andrew Dudley, and Sir Thomas Palmer were tried before a special commission. Dudley had gone with the treasonable message to France; the three others were the boldest and most unscrupulous of the Duke's partisans, while Palmer was also especially hated for his share in the death of Somerset. These four also pleaded guilty, and were sentenced, Palmer only scornfully telling the commissioners that they were traitors as well as he, and worse than he.[93]

Seven had been condemned; three only, the duke, Sir John Gates, and Palmer, were to suffer.

Crime alone makes death terrible: in the long list of victims whose bloody end, at stake or scaffold, the historian of England in the sixteenth century has to relate, two only showed signs of cowardice, and one of those was a soldier and a nobleman, who, in a moment of extreme peril, four years before, had kissed swords with his comrades, and had sworn to conquer the insurgents at Norwich, or die with honour.

The Duke of Northumberland, who since that time had lived very emphatically without God in the world, had not lived without religion. He had affected religion, talked about religion, played with religion, till fools and flatterers had told him that he was a saint; and now, in his extreme need, he found that he had trifled with forms and words, till they had grown into a hideous hypocrisy. The Infinite of death was opening at his feet, and he had no faith, no hope, no conviction, but only a blank and awful horror, and perhaps he felt that there was nothing left for him but to fling himself back in agony into the open arms of superstition. He had asked to speak with some member of the council; he had asked for a confessor. In Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, he found both.

After the sentence Gardiner visited him in the Tower, where he poured out his miserable story; he was a Catholic, he said, he always had been a Catholic; he had believed nothing of all the doctrines for which he had pretended to be so zealous under Edward. "Alas!" he cried, "is there no help for me?" "Let me live but a little longer to do penance for my many sins." Gardiner's heart was softened at the humiliating spectacle; he would speak to the queen, he said, and he did speak, not wholly without success; he may have judged rightly, that the living penitence of the Joshua of the Protestants would have been more useful to the church than his death.[94] Already Mary had expressed a wish that, if possible, the wretched man should be spared; and he would have been allowed to live, except for the reiterated protests of Renard in his own name and in the emperor's.

It was decided at last that he should die; and a priest was assigned him to prepare his soul. Doctor Watts or Watson, the same man whom Cranmer long ago had set in the stocks at Canterbury, took charge of Palmer and the rest—to them, as rough soldiers, spiritual consolation from a priest of any decent creed was welcome.

The executions were fixed originally for Monday, the 21st; but the duke's conversion was a triumph to the Catholic cause too important not to be dwelt upon a little longer. Neither Northampton, Warwick, Andrew Dudley, or Sir Henry Gates were aware that they were to be respited, and, as all alike availed themselves of the services of a confessor and the forms of the Catholic faith, their compliance could be made an instrument of a public and edifying lesson. The lives of those who were to suffer were prolonged for twenty-four hours. On Monday morning "certain of the citizens of London" were requested to be in attendance at the Tower chapel, where Northumberland, Northampton, Dudley, Henry Gates, and Palmer were brought in; and, "first kneeling down, every one of them, upon his knees, they heard mass, saying devoutedly, with the bishop,[95] every one of them, Confiteor."

"After the mass was done, the duke rose up, and looked back upon my lord marquis, and came unto him, asking them all forgiveness, the one after the other, upon their knees, one to another; and the one did heartily forgive the other. And then they came, every one of them, before the altar, every one of them kneeling, and confessing to the bishop that they were the same men in the faith according as they had confessed to him before, and that they all would die in the Catholic faith." When they had all received the sacrament, they rose and turned to the people, and the duke said:—

"Truly, good people, I profess here before you all, that I have received the sacrament according to the true Catholic faith: and the plague that is upon the realm and upon us now is that we have erred from the faith these sixteen years; and this I protest unto you all from the bottom of my heart."

Northampton, with the rest, "did affirm the same with weeping tears."[96]

Among the spectators were observed the sons of the Duke of Somerset.

In exhibiting to the world the humiliation of the professors of the gospel, the Catholic party enjoyed a pardonable triumph. Northumberland, in playing a part in the pageant, was hoping to save his wretched life. When it was over he wrote (August 22) a passionate appeal to Arundel.

"Alas, my lord," he said, "is my crime so heinous as no redemption but my blood can wash away the spots thereof? An old proverb there is, and that most true—A living dog is better than a dead lion; oh that it would please her good grace to give me life, yea, the life of a dog, if I might but live and kiss her feet, and spend both life and all in her honourable service."

But Arundel could not save him—would not have saved him, perhaps, had he been able—and he had only to face the end with such resolution as he could command.

The next morning, at nine o'clock, Warwick and Sir John Gates heard mass in the Tower chapel; the two Seymours were again present with Courtenay: and before Gates received the sacrament, he said a few words of regret to the latter for his long imprisonment, of which he admitted himself in part the cause.[97] On leaving the chapel Warwick was taken back to his room, and learned that he was respited. Gates joined Palmer, who was walking with Watson in the garden, and talking with the groups of gentlemen who were collected there. Immediately after, the duke was brought out. "Sir John," he said to Gates, "God have mercy on us; forgive me as I forgive you, although you and your council have brought us hither." "I forgive you, my lord," Gates answered, "as I would be forgiven; yet it was you and your authority that was the only original cause of all." They bowed each. The duke passed on, and the procession moved forward to Tower Hill.

The last words of a worthless man are in themselves of little moment; but the effect of the dying speech of Northumberland lends to it an artificial importance. Whether to the latest moment he hoped for his life, or whether, divided between atheism and superstition, he thought, if any religion was true, Romanism was true, and it was prudent not to throw away a chance, who can tell? At all events, he mounted the scaffold with Heath, the Bishop of Worcester, at his side; and then deliberately said to the crowd, that his rebellion and his present fall were owing to the false preachers who had led him to err from the Catholic faith of Christ; the fathers and the saints had ever agreed in one doctrine; the present generation were the first that had dared to follow their private opinions; and in England and in Germany, where error had taken deepest root, there had followed war, famine, rebellion, misery, tokens all of them of God's displeasure. Therefore, as they loved their country, as they valued their souls, he implored his hearers to turn, all of them, and turn at once, to the church which they had left; in which church he, from the bottom of his heart, avowed his own steadfast belief. For himself he called them all to witness that he died in the one true Catholic faith; to which, if he had been brought sooner, he would not have been in his present calamity.

He then knelt; "I beseech you all," he said again, "to believe that I die in the Catholic faith." He repeated the Miserere psalm, the psalm De Profundis, and the Paternoster. The executioner, as usual, begged his pardon. "I have deserved a thousand deaths," he muttered. He made the sign of the cross upon the saw-dust, and kissed it, then laid down his head, and perished.

The shame of the apostasy shook down the frail edifice of the Protestant constitution, to be raised again in suffering, as the first foundations of it had been laid, by purer hands and nobler spirits.[98] In his better years Northumberland had been a faithful subject and a fearless soldier, and, with a master's hand over him, he might have lived with integrity, and died with honour. Opportunity tempted his ambition—ambition betrayed him into crime—and, given over to his lower nature, he climbed to the highest round of the political ladder, to fall and perish like a craven. He was one of those many men who can follow worthily, yet cannot lead; and the virtue of the beginning was not less real than the ignominy of the end.

Gates was the second sufferer. He, too, spoke in the same key. He had been a great reader of Scripture, he said, but he had not read it to be edified, but to be seditious—to dispute, to interpret it after his private affection; to him, therefore, the honey had been poison, and he warned all men how they followed his ill example; God's holy mysteries were no safe things to toy or play with. Gates, in dying, had three strokes of an axe;—"Whether," says an eye-witness,[99] "it was by his own request or no was doubtful"—remarkable words: as if the everlasting fate of the soul depended on its latest emotion, and repentance could be intensified by the conscious realisation of death.

Last came Sir Thomas Palmer, in whom, to judge by his method of taking leave of life, there was some kind of nobleness. It was he who led the cavalry forlorn hope, at Haddington, when the supplies were thrown in for the garrison.

He leapt upon the scaffold, red with the blood of his companions. "Good morning to you all, good people," he said, looking round him with a smile; "ye come hither to see me die, and to see what news I have; marry, I will tell you; I have seen more in yonder terrible place [he pointed towards the Tower] than ever I saw before throughout all the realms that ever I wandered in; for there I have seen God, I have seen the world, and I have seen myself; and when I beheld my life, I saw nothing but slime and clay, full of corruption; I saw the world nothing else but vanity, and all the pleasures and treasures thereof nought worth; I saw God omnipotent, his power infinite, his mercy incomprehensible; and when I saw this, I most humbly submitted myself unto him, beseeching him of mercy and pardon, and I trust he hath forgiven me; for he called me once or twice before, but I would not turn to him, but even now by this sharp kind of death he hath called me unto him. I trust the wings of his mercy shall spread over me and save me; and I do here confess, before you all, Christ to be the very Son of God the Father, born of the Virgin Mary, which came into the world to fulfil the law for us, and to bear our offences on his back, and suffered his passion for our redemption, by the which I trust to be saved."

Like his fellow-sufferers, Palmer then said a few prayers, asked the queen's forgiveness, knelt, and died.

Stunned by the apostasy on the scaffold of the man whom they had worshipped as a prophet, the ultra-faction among the Protestants became now powerless. The central multitude, whose belief was undefined, yielded to the apparent sentence of Heaven upon a cause weakened by unsuccessful treason, and disavowed in his death by its champion. Edward had died on the anniversary of the execution of More; God, men said, had visited his people, and "the Virgin Mary" had been set upon the throne for their redemption.[100] Dr. Watson, on the 20th of August, preached at Paul's Cross under a guard of soldiers; on the 24th, two days after the scene on Tower Hill, so little was a guard necessary, that mass was said in St. Paul's Church in Latin, with matins and vespers. The crucifix was replaced in the roodloft, the high altar was re-decorated, the real presence was defended from the pulpit, and, except from the refugees, not a murmur was heard.[101] Catching this favourable opportunity, the queen charmed the country with the announcement that the second portion of the last subsidy granted by Parliament should not be collected; she gave her word that the currency at the earliest moment should be thoroughly restored; while she gained credit on all sides for the very moderate vengeance with which she appeared to be contenting herself. Ridley only, Renard wrote, on the 9th of September, would now be executed; the other prisoners were to be all pardoned. The enthusiasm was slightly abated, indeed, when it was announced that their forgiveness would not be wholly free. Montague and Bromley, on their release from the Tower, were fined £7000 a-piece; Suffolk, Northampton, and other noblemen and gentlemen, as their estates would bear. But, to relieve the burdens of the people at the expense of those who had reaped the harvest of the late spoliations was, on the whole, a legitimate retribution; the moneyed men were pleased with the recognition of Edward's debts, and provided a loan of 25,000 crowns for the present necessities of the government. London streets rang again with shouts of "God Save the Queen;" and Mary recovered a fresh instalment of popularity to carry her a few steps further.[102]

The refugees were the first difficulty. They were too numerous to imprison; and the most influential among them—men like Peter Martyr—having come to England on the invitation of the late government, it was neither just nor honourable to hand them over to their own sovereigns. But both Mary and her Flemish adviser were anxious to see them leave the country as quickly as possible. The emperor recommended a general intimation to be given out, that criminals of all kinds taking refuge in England would be liable to seizure, offences against religion being neither specially mentioned nor specially excepted.[103] The foreign preachers were ordered to depart by proclamation; and Peter Martyr, who had left Oxford, and was staying with Cranmer at Lambeth, expecting an arrest, received, instead of it, a safe-conduct, of which he instantly availed himself. The movements of others were quickened with indirect menaces; while Gardiner told Renard, with much self-satisfaction, that a few messages desiring some of them to call upon him at his house had given them wings.[104]

Finding her measures no longer opposed, the queen refused next to recognise the legality of the marriage of the clergy. Married priests should either leave their wives or leave their benefices; and on the 29th of August, Gardiner, Bonner, Day, and Tunstal, late prisoners in the Tower, were appointed commissioners to examine into the conditions of their episcopal brethren. Convocation was about to meet, and must undergo a preliminary purification. Unhappy Convocation! So lately the supreme legislative body in the country, it was now patched, clipped, mended, repaired, or altered, as the secular government put on its alternate hues. The Protestant bishops had accepted their offices on Protestant terms—Quamdiu se bene gesserint, on their good behaviour; and, with the assistance of so pliant a clause, a swift clearance was effected. Barlow, to avoid expulsion, resigned Bath. Paul Bush retreated from Bristol. Hooper, ejected from Worcester by the restoration of Heath, was deprived of Gloucester for heresy and marriage, and, being a dangerous person, was committed on the 1st of September to the Fleet. Ferrars, of St. David's, left in prison by Northumberland for other pretended offences, was deprived on the same grounds, but remained in confinement. Bird, having a wife, was turned out of Chester; Archbishop Holgate out of York. Coverdale, Ridley, Scory, and Ponet had been already disposed of. The bench was wholesomely swept.[105]

The English Protestant preachers seeing that priests everywhere held themselves licensed ex officio to speak as they pleased from the pulpit, began themselves also, in many places, to disobey the queen's proclamation. They were made immediately to feel their mistake, and were brought to London to the Tower, the Marshalsea, or the Fleet, to the cells left vacant by their opponents. Among the rest came one who had borne no share in the late misdoings, but had long foreseen the fate to which those doings would bring him and many more. When Latimer was sent for, he was at Stamford. On the 4th of September six hours' notice was given him of his intended arrest; and so obviously his escape was desired, that the pursuivant who brought the warrant left him to obey it at his leisure; his orders, he said, were not to wait. But Latimer had business in England. While the fanatics who had provoked the catastrophe were slinking across the Channel from its consequences, Latimer determined to stay at home, and help to pay the debts which they had incurred. He went quietly to London, appeared before the council, where his "demeanour" was what they were pleased to term "seditious,"[106] and was committed to the Tower. "What, my friend," he said to a warder who was an old acquaintance there, "how do you? I am come to be your neighbour again." Sir Thomas Palmer's rooms in the garden were assigned for his lodging. In the winter he was left without a fire, and, growing infirm, he sent a message to the Lieutenant of the Tower to look better after him, or he should give him the slip yet.[107]

And there was another besides Latimer who would not fly when the chance was left open to him. Archbishop Cranmer had continued at Lambeth unmolested, yet unpardoned; his conduct with respect to the letters patent had been more upright than the conduct of any other member of the council by whom they had been signed; and on this ground, therefore, an exception could not easily be made in his disfavour. But his friends had interceded vainly to obtain the queen's definite forgiveness for him; treason might be forgotten; the divorce of Catherine of Arragon could never be forgotten. So he waited on, watching the reaction gathering strength, and knowing well the point to which it tended. In the country the English service was set aside and the mass restored with but little disturbance. No force had been used or needed; the Catholic majorities among the parishioners had made the change for themselves. The archbishop's friends came to him for advice; he recommended them to go abroad; he was urged to go himself while there was time; he said, "it would be in no ways fitting for him to go away, considering the post in which he was; and to show that he was not afraid to own all the changes that were by his means made in religion in the last reign."[108]

Neither was it fitting for him to sit by in silence. The world, misconstruing his inaction, believed him false like Northumberland; the world reported that he had restored mass at Canterbury; the world professed to have ascertained that he had offered to sing a requiem at Edward's funeral. In the second week of September, therefore, he made a public offer, in the form of a letter to a friend, to defend the communion service, and all the alterations for which he was responsible, against any one who desired to impugn them; he answered the stories against himself with a calm denial; and, though the letter was not printed, copies in manuscript were circulated through London so numerously that the press, said Renard, would not have sent out more.[109]

The challenge was answered by an immediate summons before the council; the archbishop was accused of attempting to excite sedition among the people, and was forthwith committed to the Tower to wait, with Ridley and Latimer, there, till his fate should be decided on. Meantime the eagerness with which the country generally availed itself of the permission to restore the Catholic ritual, proved beyond a doubt that, except in London and a few large towns, the popular feeling was with the queen. The English people had no affection for the Papacy. They did not wish for the re-establishment of the religious orders, or the odious domination of the clergy. But the numerical majority among them did desire a celibate priesthood, the ceremonies which the customs of centuries had sanctified, and the ancient faith of their fathers, as reformed by Henry VIII. The rights of conscience had found no more consideration from the Protestant doctrinalists than from the most bigoted of the persecuting prelates; and the facility with which the professors of the gospel had yielded to moral temptations, had for the time inspired moderate men with much distrust for them and for their opinions.

Could Mary have been contented to pursue her victory no further, she would have preserved the hearts of her subjects; and the reaction, left to complete its own tendencies, would in a few years, perhaps, have accomplished in some measure her larger desires. But few sovereigns have understood less the effects of time and forbearance. She was deceived by the rapidity of her first success; she flattered herself that, difficult though it might be, she could build up again the ruined hierarchy, could compel the holders of church property to open their hands, and could reunite the country to Rome. Before she had been three weeks on the throne, she had received, as will be presently mentioned, a secret messenger from the Vatican; and she had opened a correspondence with the pope, entreating him, as an act of justice to herself and to those who had remained true to their Catholic allegiance, to remove the interdict.[110]

Other actors in the great drama which was approaching were already commencing their parts.

Reginald Pole having attempted in vain to recover a footing in England on the accession of Edward, having seen his passionate expectations from the Council of Trent melt into vapour, and Germany confirmed in heresy by the Peace of Passau, was engaged, in the summer of 1553, at a convent on the Lago di Garda, in re-editing his book against Henry VIII., with an intended dedication to Edward, of whose illness he was ignorant. The first edition, on the failure of his attempt to raise a Catholic crusade against his country, had been withdrawn from circulation; the world had not received it favourably, and there was a mystery about the publication which it is difficult to unravel. In the interval between the first despatch of the book into England as a private letter in the summer of 1536, and the appearance of it in print at Rome in the winter of 1538–9, it was re-written, as I have already stated, enlarged, and divided into parts. In a letter of apology which Pole wrote to Charles V., in the summer or early autumn of 1538,[111] he spoke of that division as having been executed by himself;[112] he said that he had kept his book secret till the church had spoken; but Paul having excommunicated Henry, he could no longer remain silent; he dwelt at length on the history of the work which he was then editing,[113] and he sent a copy at the same time with a letter, or he wrote a letter with the intention of sending a copy, to James V. of Scotland.[114]